Fastener assemblies of various different shapes and sizes are available in many different environments. One common type of fastener assembly is a quarter turn fastener. This type of fastener is particularly useful in fastening two members together, for example, two panels where a positive retention force is required to hold the panels in the closed position and yet permit easy and quick separation of the panels of the open position. For this purpose, quarter turn fasteners can be opened and closed by merely a quarter turn relative rotation of components of the fastener assembly.
Quarter turn fasteners generally include a stud member and a receptacle member. Different types of cam surfaces and cam followers are employed to achieve the desired locking and unlocking action of the fasteners. Naturally it is always desirable to provide the most inexpensive to manufacture and efficient to utilize assembly of a minimum number of components.
One difficulty that is encountered with quarter turn fasteners is the fact that, while it is easy to shift the stud and receptacle portions between the locked and unlocked positions, it is often difficult to axially separate the members to achieve relative displacement of the two panels or members being held. This difficulty is aggrevated in many instances because it is desirable to have the stud and receptacle members in recessed or otherwise inaccessible positions so that the aesthetic appearance of the panel structure is enhanced and also so that there is minimum projection of parts of the fastener assemblies that might interfere with regular activities conducted in the vicinity of the panels.
With this in mind, some types of self-ejecting fastener assemblies have been developed. In general, these self-ejecting assemblies require additional structure or operational steps to achieve ejection action or for otherwise exposing portions of the fastener assembly to facilitate grasping and opening of the assembly. The result is enlarged, complex and expensive projecting portions on the assembly.
It is clear that it would be extremely desirable, in addition to maintaining a low cost and easy to operate assembly, to provide a compact self-ejecting assembly in which the ejection components are unexposed and non-projecting when the assembly is fastened.
Another concern in connection with fasteners of this type, is to provide an inexpensive, efficient and positive means for mounting the stud to one of the members to be fastened and to be coupled with the receptacle on the other member being fastened. There are a variety of different mounting structures and most require some separate mounting elements and a number of operative time consuming steps for performance of the coupling operation.